Acquisitions 2020

Time to start a new thread!

Yes! And happy New Year everyone! I am very thankful for this haven of culture and civility.

Yes, a belated Happy New Year to all Devotees, and my sincere thanks for your participation here!

My books got a new home and they are pretty excited about it. We were running out of space but there is plenty now.

>4 BuzzBuzzard: My books would be excited to have a beautiful home like this. Perfect!!

Magnificent (but enjoy the empty spaces while you can)!

Lovely! Most of mine are in boxes.....

>4 BuzzBuzzard:
Very nice, but I suspect your book buying rate will now increase!

>4 BuzzBuzzard: Very nice indeed. Is that the Nonesuch Iliad that I spy there? Do you have its companion volume of the Odyssey?

>4 BuzzBuzzard:
Gorgeous!
Congratulations!
Space is a serious issue for me - some books are now in boxes, but I am not sure that I would do anything like you did any time soon. My children have not gone to college yet...

>9 ultrarightist: It is the Nonesuch Iliad. I don't have the companion Odyssey yet, but the 1931 Odyssey by the LEC is quite nice too.

I've ordered some books with my tax return, but I'll wait to share what they are until I receive them next week and determine the condition. Don't want to get my hopes up too much until I actually have them in hand.

My books have arrived! The one book I took a gamble on ended up being a Heritage Press title, which didn't surprise me, but the rest are in good to excellent condition:
Evergreen Tales arrived in like new condition. I am stunned at how well these look. I'm going to get the other two sets at the shop in the hopes they arrive as nicely as these!
Jude the Obscure was also in near fine condition. Did not have the prints, but it did come with two letters for it, which was wild.
I also ordered the Essays of Michel de Montaigne, the School for Scandal, and Imaginary Conversations. These are a little well loved in contrast to the others, and don't have a slipcase or letters, but they're in good enough condition that I don't plan to return them.

All and all, very happy with my purchase!

Great additions, Jerry! The Montaigne Essays are usually in "well-loved"--at best! I've never found a set yet in truly Fine condition.

14) Haha, that is a good sign!

I have two more Evergreen Tale sets on the way (I forgot to specify that I got the first set this time; I have the third and fourth on order), so I'm really excited. These have been longtime wants!

My Evergreen Tales order arrived! I have the third and fourth set now, which is the same limitation number as the first I got last week. They're in excellent condition too! Very happy to have three of the five in my collection, and I'm looking forward to writing about them!

17) That's fascinating, as my fourth set also is inscribed to a family, although I've had trouble reading Hersholt's handwriting in my quick lookover tonight. If you're fine with me doing so, would you mind me including these in the posts I do on the series this summer?

19) Great, thank you! :)

>17 the_bb:
Bette Eydenberg is a rare, possibly unique, spelling of the name, which makes it odds on that the dedicatee of your Ugly Duckling was the daughter of Cornell alumnus Morton Eydenberg and his wife Judith Rosenthal of 1249 California Road, Tuckahoe. She was born on Christmas Day 1947; the family later moved to Roslyn Heights, New York, where she attended Roslyn High School. She married (date unknown), her husband's surname being Schneiderman (occupation unknown). It's possible that she had a daughter who became an academic - there was (and may still be), an associate professor at Long Island University named Bette E Schneiderman (the E possibly standing for Eydenberg to distinguish her from her mother).

21) haha, I love this. I'll look into my Evergreens tomorrow and share the family it was addressed to; it'd be neat to get some background on them if possible :)

>21 featherwate:

Jack, once again your detective skills amaze me!

One of the factors that stimulates interest, and often raises the value, of certain collectible items is provenance. Although this was originally due to help determine the authenticity of the item in question (for example, the authenticity of a Chinese Chippendale desk could be proven if documentation existed it had once been owned by David Garrick), in these days just the mere attachment of an article to a "celebrity" can often increase its value and/or desirability. I personally hold this is a debasement of the original purpose of provenance, but....

One of my Limited Editions Club editions is the 2-volume Gil Blas. I actually own 2 copies: one is in pristine condition with original dust jackets and slipcase (likewise pristine), and one is a well-read version with soiled dustaackets. The reason I have the not-so-fine edition is that it was originally owned by the great film director Frank Capra. The only reason I can give for having bought it is that when I was still in the film business, I subconsciously hoped that some of Mr. Capra's mana might be transmitted to me. Bronislaw Malinowski would understand.

Do any Limited Editions Club collectors have books once owned by one of the "rich and famous"? Some members of the Club were very famous--Sinclair Lewis and Tyrone Power, to name two--and do you feel that such prior ownership increases pride of ownership?

So I've looked at my 4th set of Evergreen Tales, and Jean addressed the copies to the "Culter Children" or the "Cutler Children". Jean had a flourish of doing the cross of the t well above the actual letter, and it's in a different spot in one of the books (for "Cutler") than the other two, where it's above the second ("Culter"). I'll have to post some pictures on my blog, but if there's any magical insights to be gleamed from that, I'd be curious to know.

>23 Django6924:
An interesting question. I’m not sure if any of my LEC volumes have bookplates from famous previous owners — if so, they’re not known to me without an internet search. I think it would be fun to have a book once owned by an illustrious figure, but it wouldn’t make the book itself seem more valuable to me, if that makes any sense.

On the other hand, I have a copy of The Pit and the Pendulum, from the South Street Seaport Press, illustrated by John DePol, with John DePol’s bookplate on the front paste-down — now *that* gives me a bit of pleasure and makes the book seem more valuable!

>23 Django6924:
Robert, I too have a book from the library of a Hollywood director. It's not actually an LEC book (I can't imagine how Macy came to overlook it) but it is a limited edition printed for the Casanova Society by a very competent press on a nice deckle-edged antique laid rag paper. It is George Cukor's copy of The Courtesan: The Part She Has Played in Classic and Modern Literature and in Life (1926). Perhaps studying it was the key to his success as a 'woman's director'. (I can't say any of his mana rubbed off on me, either.) Sadly for his memory, but luckily for me his name didn't seem to add anything to the price.
My LEC copy of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward was given to his son Paul by his (Paul's) second wife on their anniversary; he was a high-powered newspaper editor and it wasn't hard to find a photo of him, which was an added pleasure, and my LEC Lord Jim once belonged to Nicholas Monsarrat, who was for nearly 30 years or so one of the best-selling authors world-wide.
But I can't say I feel particular pride in these associations; I am just as intrigued by previous owners as ordinary and obscure as I am. It's a sense of connecting with another human being who hopefully enjoyed their book as much as I do (though Montsarrat probably didn't as he gave it away) .
My favourite is a first edition of an early 19th century comic poem called The Tour of Doctor Syntax with wonderful hand-coloured prints by the great satiric cartoonist Thomas Rowlandson. But its real attraction lies in the touching words that its original owner wrote neatly at the top of the title page: Emma Marsh, 1818, my book. I shall never know who she was, but owning a book as well as reading it clearly meant a lot to her - and it is an unusual book for a woman to have owned at the time: Rowlandson and his co-author had a robust sense of humour which many households would not have approved of. Good for her, I say!

>24 WildcatJF:
Poor Hersholt It's no wonder his t-cross wandered around a bit - he must have had to sign thousands of these books!

27) That is true; the Evergreen Tales had a higher limitation number, so he had to sign 2500 copies (plus additional ones for special individuals) for 15 individual books: that's 37,500 signatures!

>24 WildcatJF: I assume your limitation number is 1993? I doubt the Cutler Children enjoyed my 5th set of Evergreen Tales dedicated to them since all three volumes are pristine with the original glassine.

29) Haha, yes! I got the 1st, 3rd and 4th set with 1993 as the limitation number. The 4th was also still in the glassine, and all three were like new! Good to know where the fifth set ended up, haha.

>23 Django6924: One of the first LECs I bought (The Descent of Man) contains a bookplate from James Strohn Copley, the publisher of the San Diego Union Tribune. Although probably not generally considered famous (though definitely rich), he owned the hotel I used to work at when I first moved to the US. The Copley family was greatly admired in the small town the hotel was located in, and knowing this book belonged to him makes it more interesting to me. The bookplate was designed by Ben Kutcher, who was also a book illustrator:



Some other bookplates I found are probably more interesting in terms of the artists who designed them rather than the owners of the books. My copy of Looking Backward belonged to Herman H Rosenthal, who I think was a New York businessmen. However, he appears to have been a friend or acquaintance of Arthur Szyk, who designed a bookplate for him:



My copy of "The Red and the Black" belonged to John Whiting Friel, a Steel Executive and book collector. It contains the well known Rockwell Kent bookplate (and I see there are several more LECs with this bookplate out in the market.



I have to admit that I am particularly looking for copies with bookplates from previous owners, famous or not. Knowing who owned it before does make a book interesting to me (not to mention it frequently cuts the price for the book in half).

Fascinating stories all! I admit that a bookplate of a previous owner--famous or not--adds something extra, although one often sees the warning that adding a bookplate decreases the value.

>31 teppi2:

These bookplates are wonderful, most especially for me the one designed by Arthur Szyk, who I would have never expected to have done such a thing. It is my favorite of the three you shared. Thank you!

Is there any way to ID books owned by Lewis or Power? This may be a stupid question, but did the number of the book a subscriber received have anything to do with the order in which they subscribed, i.e., if you were one of the very first 10 subscribers, did you always get one of the first volumes or were they just shipped to any subscriber, at random?

Steve, I believe that you kept the same number as long as you were a subscriber, with the possible exceptions of Limited Editions Club books which were not part of the original series issue, such as The Grapes of Wrath. I will double-check that, but I believe it is so, as I have purchased lots of books from former subscribers and they all had the same limitation number, and my wife's cousin had many LECs her husband had received as a subscriber from the early 1950s--mid 1960s and they were all the same limitation number.

Since I enjoyed Django and teppi's stories above so much, I created another thread for books acquired with historical or famous provenance: https://www.librarything.com/topic/316649

Purchased my first LEC, Secret Sharer by Conrad

>36 davelin:
A fine choice — One of the best LEC productions, to my taste. Enjoy!

>37 kermaier: Thank you! The overwhelmingly positive reviews on this publication from this forum plus reasonable price meant I couldnt pass it up!

>36 davelin: After dipping my toe with my first LEC purchase, with the information available from this group, I've made my first few HP purchases -

Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Eugene Onegin
Aeneid

>39 davelin: congrats! I have the HP Eugene Onegin and love it!

>39 davelin:

Nice haul! I have always wanted to see the Limited Editions Club "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" so I could compare the original aquatints used in it to the photogravure reproductions of them used in my 4 Heritage Press versions (I became obsessive-compulsive about collecting the first HP of these to get samples of the different batik used for binding). I think the photogravures are quite attractive, but Macy claimed they don't hold a candle to the originals--which seems just.

Made a few HP finds last weekend:

Life of Samuel Johnson
A Tale of Two Cities
Mayor of Casterbridge
Symposium
The Odyssey

All in amazing condition, with slipcases in great shape and the Sandglass inserts.

>42 literatefool:

Is your copy of A Tale of Two Cities the first HP printing? What is the Sandglass number? I haven't had much luck trying to find the first printing (Sandglass 4B).

The HP Life of Samuel Johnson I have always found preferable to the Limited Editions Club edition. The binding is superior in looks and durability, IMO, and I can't believe the Limited Editions Club didn't use the color reproductions of the frontispiece portraits that the HP uses.

Unfortunately no-third printing. I can get you the Sandglass number when I get home.

I'd been looking for a set of the Life of Samuel Johnson for awhile. I just got lucky last Saturday.

>41 Django6924: I am glad to hear I am not the only one who buys the same book in several editions, just to observe the differences in the binding.

Although I do not think that the binding of the LEC is one of their best, I have to agree with Macy that the aquatints in the LEC are quite superior to the reproductions in the Heritage Press edition. My photography skills are sub-par and I currently have to take pictures under artificial light, but here are some comparisons (Heritage Press is the 1944 edition):

Heritage Press:

(note: the slight distortion to the left of this image is a due to the bending of the page, not the actual image)

Limited Editions Club:


Heritage Press:


Limited Editions Club:


I happen to have a duplicate copy of this book... it is definitely not in collectible condition (missing the slipcase, nearly complete loss of silver-stamping on the spine, some scratching etc.), but it should do just fine to compare the quality of the illustrations. If you want it, it is yours, just let me know by pm where to ship it to. It might take a week or two until I can send it out, though.

Sorry for the delay- here is the Sandglass number: Number VIII:26

>46 literatefool:

Yes, the same as mine.

I have just finished reading the LEC version of H G Wells' The Invisible Man. What an attractively designed book! I like the warm-toned paper which is of a slightly heavier weight, giving the book a satisfyingly weighty feel in the hand. The 29 black and white full-page illustrations by Charles Mozley which open each chapter feel 'right' for the book to me. The binding and slipcase, while not 'flashy', are particularly successful for me, with the slipcase having a rounded top and bottom into which the curved spine of the book sits neatly. Well done Sir Francis Meynell!

>48 edgeworn:

A favorite of mine as well. The Limited Editions Club did very well by Wells, with this book, Tono-Bungay, and the 2-volume War of the Worlds/The Time Machine, which I find all beautifully (and by that I mean appropriately) designed and illustrated. If only they had also done The Island of Dr. Moreau, perhaps my favorite along with The Invisible Man.

His non-scifi/fantasy works have been highly lauded, especially Mr. Polly and Kipps, but I don't know if anyone reads them today. When I was an undergraduate, I started on Kipps after reading it was considered his masterpiece, but I found the dialect tough going and never finished it. Now that I have acquired patience (with my gray hairs), I may try it again.

>49 Django6924:

I have not read Tono-Bungay (is it possible to be put off a book by its title?) but must acquire a copy.

I have the LEC War of the Worlds/The Time Machine two-volume set, which I like greatly, but for me the illustrations are 'a game of two halves' as we say on this side of the Atlantic. I am a fan of Mugnaini's illustrations in general, and they work well for me with The Time Machine, set as it is predominantly in the future.

On the other hand, The War of the Worlds is set in Victorian England, mainly in the English county of Surrey where I lived for 12 years or so, and I am very familiar with many of the roads, towns and villages in which the events of the book occur. One of Wells' skills as an author for me was to set extraordinary events in commonplace locations and for this novel I might have preferred illustrations which better reflected this contradiction of aliens in late Victorian Surrey.

But that's just me.

>50 edgeworn:

Your point on the illustrations for WOTW is well taken--I can see how illustrations faithful to the locale would have extra resonance for a reader familiar with them. I'm not, and have images from the George Pal movie from the 1950s and Orson Welles' radio broadcast from the 1930s in my mind's eye, and am an uncritical fan of Joe Mugnaini, so it didn't bump for me.

Did the Folio Society do a version with location/period-appropriate illustrations? I seem to remember they did.

Ordered a better replacement copy of Plato's Republic. Monthly Letter included, yay.

If anyone wants to trade or make an offer for my now obsolete Very Good condition copy, no slipcase, no ML, feel free to PM me.

My ever generous book blog fan passed along more LECs for me to cover!
Poems of Heinrich Heine/Fritz Kredel
Camille by Alexandre Dumas fils/Bernard Lamotte
Eighty Days Around the World by Jules Verne/Edward A. Wilson
The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch/Joe Mugnaini
Orations and Essays by Cicero/Salvatore Fiume
Youth/Typhoon/The End of Tether by Joseph Conrad/Robert Shore

All are with slipcases save Age of Fable, and are in more or less good to excellent condition.

As always, I cannot express my gratitude!

Temptation of St. Anthony...I already had the Allen Press version, but dang the LEC is nice...

With that economic stimulus check on the way, I decided to spend some of it at my favorite bookstore online to help them out, and picked up the following:
The Pastoral Loves of Daphnis and Chloe
Leaves of Grass (1929)
The Cloister in the Hearth
The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales (1931)
Travels in Arabia Deserta

Slowly working on building up my books from those early years of the Club! (Arabia Deserta is not, but it was under $25 so I tossed it in for good measure)

>55 WildcatJF: I made the mistake of spending that stimulus check before it was official and ended-up getting squat as I fell in a loophole. Ah well, the LEC Quixote (1933) is worth it no matter how I scramble for a way to pay for it.

I read The Cloister and the Hearth earlier this year and felt like I had found a buried treasure. It’s really a great novel and the Lynd Ward illustrations are striking.

57) Oh no! Hopefully you can get that all figured out sooner than later!

I don't have a loophole, thankfully; I've also had some other things bottom out so I can shift money into this purchase if need be. I'm holding off on any other purchases until I actually have the money in hand, haha.

Good afternoon.

Been collecting for about 3 years and have over 200 titles so far.

Glad to find this group.

Good afternoon. Just joined the group.

I noticed that you have plastic covers on all your books.

What specific product are you using. I have looked but can't find anything that will work without having to "tape" it to the inside of the cover.

Any help would be appreciated.

>60 jpinomaha: Welcome to the group!

I recommend Dura-Lar. I buy it in 50 foot rolls. It's a very cost effective way to protect your books. I don't use any tape, just fold it like a dust jacket.

Thank you. Which thickness do you recommend. I see it comes from .001 - .007. Thanks again.

I use .003. Works great!

I use .003 as well.

>60 jpinomaha: To work with Dura-Lar successfully get a cutting board, ruler, knife and bone folder.

Too many duplicates for me. But potentially a good deal for somebody (no affiliation with the seller):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264692989315?boolp=5&ul_noapp=true

This is actually my listing :). I wonder how many of us have been buying from each other for years without realizing it!

I’m only offering them at this price (minus a hundred for best offer) because I’m stuck at home with two toddlers (week four of this ...) and have precisely zero time to list the books individually. Plus, if I’m going to have to go to the post office, I only want to go only once.

P.S. Several of the volumes listed are duplicates I acquired solely for the purpose of obtaining the ML; others do have imperfections and/or far from ideal slipcases (Titebond glue would solve mant of the issues). Send me a private message (with your email address if you seek photos) or contact me through eBay if you're interested in condition reports for specific titles.

The listing was originally for 27 volumes, but I split off five for a Devotee who may wish to remain anonymous. I would be willing to split off further volumes in groups of five or six (or more) IF you pm me or put "Devotee" at the top of an eBay message to me.

Also while I think of it, I would, for a Devotee, ship part or all of the lot overseas at USPS/FedEx/UPS cost (packed snug and tight), but that would have to be via a PayPal private sale (eBay charges commission even on postage costs). This is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to minimize per-unit shipping costs, but I ask that people bear with me because I have very little time right now (I'm sure all you parents understand exactly that we get about two moments to ourselves each day of what feels like house arrest!)

P.P.S. The books are in Austin (my username dates from when I lived in Manhattan years ago) and have been socially distanced from everyone :)

I also wish to part with The Book of Job and The Book of Ruth, but will not add these to the eBay lot because I don't want to have to take new pictures and do revisions.

>69 NYCFaddict: Here I sit brokenhearted....'cuz I'm gebusted. Haven't a feather to fly with. *sigh*

Sale pending: The Book of Job and The Book of Ruth. Sorry, ladies and gentlemen!

>67 NYCFaddict:
Looks like I did buy something from you in the past - at least ebay tells me so.
I wanted to mention that you can avoid a trip to your post office if you schedule a pickup of your package online.

Thank you for the tip, but I don't have any scales or means of working out the postage ...

I have ended the listing because a different Devotee bought 17 of the 22 volumes.

The only ones I have left are:

King John
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Argonautica (unbroken binding, which is very unusual, but a bookplate)
Song of Roland
The Betrothed

Please pm me this weekend if you are interested in any/some/all of these. I will go to the post office on Tuesday.

All things come to those who wait? The 1942 Leaves of Grass with photographs by Edward Weston has been on my wish list for a long time. Unfortunately, the copies that I usually see on sale are pretty worn and start at $1000. My persistence and luck finally paid off and I found a copy in mint condition in the original glassine. Even better, I paid a lower price than I've ever seen for this set. As a final lagniappe, it has an interesting provenance. It was originally owned by Arthur Anderson (founder of the eponymous accounting firm). He died in 1947 and it has been passed down to the heirs until now. It just arrived in a very well packed box.

75) That's amazing! That's also on my dream list, but given my recent flurry of books I won't be looking into any more LECs for a while.

I happened to be the Devotee who bought most of NYCFaddict's eBay lot and the Szyk titles, so I'll be getting these over the next couple months:
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra/Enric-Cristobal Ricart
The Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel by Charles de Coster/Richard Floethe
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer/George Jones
The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, aka Richard Burton/Valenti Angelo
Vathek by William Beckford/Valenti Angelo
The Book of Job, illustrated by Arthur Szyk
Penguin Island by AnatoleFrance/Malcolm Cameron
The Book of Ruth, illustrated by Arthur Szyk
The Chronicles of England by Jean Froissart/Henry C. Pitz
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe/Domenico Gnoli
Daisy Miller by Henry James/Gustave Nebel
Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde/Tony Walton
The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus by Johann von Grimmelshausen/Fritz Eichenberg
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare/Hugo Steiner-Prag
Pericles, Prince of Tyre by William Shakespeare/Stanislas Ostoja-Chrostowski
Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare/George Buday
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare/Nikolai Fyodorovitch Lapshin

Thank you so much NYCFaddict! :)

Now I just need my earlier order to actually leave the post office...

With laid-in articles on Pitz and Eichenberg, too, so you will have additional info for the blog postings :)

>76 WildcatJF: Congrats, that was a nice haul and reasonably priced as well. A great way to bulk up one's collection. Particular favorites of mine are the Don Quixote, Simplicissimus, Angelo, and Szyk.

77) Always appreciate supplemental material! :) Thank you!

78) Agreed! I'm very happy!

>75 kdweber:
Congratulations! On one hand, you had amazing luck getting this incredible book with an interesting provenance for a good price, on the other hand, your patience paid off! A good lesson and inspiration for all of us. :)
>76 WildcatJF:
This is a really nice collection of LEC books! Enjoy!

I've been wanting a copy of the Chinese literary classic,The Water Margin, for some time now and only recently discovered that it has also been published under the title All Men Are Brothers.

I took a look at copies of the Pearl S. Buck translation published by the LEC, but as I am impatient (and somewhat impecunious at the moment), elected to shoot for a copy of the HC reprint which I obtained at a reasonable price. It lacks the slipcase but has the Sandglass. It is a small quarto and a bit heavy, but I am content. Excellent illustrations by Covarrubias.

The covers of the LEC are so fragile I dare not open them ...

>81 Glacierman:
>82 NYCFaddict:

Yeah, I accidentally ripped the cover off Volume 1 while pulling it from the shelf. Fragile indeed...

NYCFaddict sent me a few extra LECs for an excellent price when he shipped me the two Szyk titles I listed above, which arrived yesterday:
Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley/Edward A. Wilson
The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert/Warren Chappell
The Adventures of Hajji Baba in Ispahan by J.J. Morier/Honore Guilbeau

Now to nurse my poor wallet for a couple months, haha. Thanks again!

I was skeptical, but I've been wading through the Van Krimpen Iliad. Superb.

Hello everyone, I'm a relative newcomer here. I have been accumulating a collection of Folio Society (more readily available here in the UK) over the last few years, but wanted to stretch out into something a bit more exotic. My first two LECs are

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Kenilworth

I managed to buy both in the UK, and was pleased to find that the copy of Kenilworth was the personal presentation copy of David Daiches, who wrote the book's introduction.

I have some more LECs on the way—but they have to survive the transatlantic crossing, which, having read Twenty Thousand Leagues, I now know to be quite hazardous. Hopefully, my books don't get eaten by a poulp!

>4 BuzzBuzzard: truly gorgeous library!

Welcome to the madhouse! :)

Just picked up two LECs, well three if you count The Dolphin Number 4 (all 3 parts).

The first book is Aucassin and Nicolete. I actually already own a copy of the LEC Aucassin and Nicolete that I bought on the Amazon Marketplace before I learned, the hard way, that this is not a good venue for buying books. Back in 2012 I actually paid $60 for a worn copy, with a cracked hinge, bumped corners, and no dustjacket or slipcase. This time I paid $90 for a Fine/Near Fine copy with the original NF dustjacket and NF slipcase. It is missing the Monthly Letter but I don't really care since I have a copy of The First 50 Monthly Letters.

The second book is Emerson's Essays printed by John Henry Nash. It was hard to find a copy that didn't have partially sunned boards. I did find one in nice condition though the spine is lightly toned. What a large and heavy book. I'm trying to pick up all the work that Nash has performed for the LEC.

>86 ubiquitousuk:
Congratulations on you purchase of such a special copy of Kenilworth! And, also, welcome to the wonderful world of the Limited Editions Club books! I would not think of LEC books as exotic, but if your Twenty Thousand Leagues is crossing the ocean to you in a submarine, this would definitely be an exotic way of acquiring a book. I would hate to think about how much shipping would cost for Verne's From Earth to Moon and Around the Moon set, if your book would follow a similar system of delivery.

>88 kdweber:
Congratulations on both the Dolphin and Aucassin and Nicolete! Nice price for the Aucassin!

>88 kdweber:

And what do you think of Aucassin and Nicolete? Many people, including Macy himself, seemed to think of it as a misfire because of the illustrations. I have always thought this one of the most desirable LECs because it is so much a time capsule of the era, with its Art Deco-ish design, including the 1920s costumes.

I had another Aucassin and Nicolete printed by George Harrap, with illuminations by Evelyn Paul (who illustrated the Harrap La vita nuova which is one of my favorite books) and tipped-in illustrations in a pre-Raphaelite style, and leather bound with a medieval-style clasp. Although this was the kind of book the Club members might have been expecting, I never liked it as much as I did the Limited Editions Club version and sold it to a neighbor.

>90 Django6924: I like both the binding and illustrations which is why I decided to go all in for a nice copy. I also like the hand-made paper and use of color on every page. It is not uncommon to see Shakespeare plays performed with the actors in modern attire because we can still relate to the motivations and behavior of the players. However, it is amusing to see a 12/13th century tale showing World War I tanks assaulting Biaucaire Castle next to soldiers with Norman helmets and WWI rifles looking like lances but that is part of the charm of this edition. Definitely a keeper.

Just got four more LECs in the mail, with one more coming.

Today I received:
At the Sign of the Queen Pedauque Anatole France Sylvain Sauvage
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard Anatole France Sylvain Sauvage
Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll John Tenniel
Two Mediaeval Tales Robert Louis Stevenson C.B. Falls

Before you ask, no, Through the Looking Glass is not signed by Alice Hargraves, but it did come with a nifty piece of LEC ephemera from Macy about the process of getting a signed colophon sent to you, which this owner apparently didn't pony up the two extra dollars for. I'll share it alongside the book in my July post on my blog. I got all of these for 30% off, which was a big help for the Carroll book, haha.

The Carroll was a pie in the sky dream that I'm so happy to have in my collection; the reproduced illustrations are extremely well done. The France novels were wish list acquisitions as I adore France and Sauvage's respective areas of expertise, and the Two Mediaeval Tales continues to round out my completion towards having all of the Series One books. Almost halfway there now!

All are from the same collection, and the books themselves are in very good condition. Slipcases have seen better days, but they were all included.

The one incoming is Far Away and Long Ago, which NYCFAddict offered a few weeks earlier. This one is another wish list title, so I'm excited to get it in a couple days!

Recently acquired the 2-volume edition of 'Notre-Dame de Paris' by Victor Hugo with the fabulous woodcut illustrations by Frans Masereel, the originator or the wordless novel in 1918 with his landmark '25 Images of a Man's Passion'. I opted for a copy which was rebound in full dark brown goatskin leather with black leather and gilt labels on the spine rather than the original stiff paper binding. The letterpress printing is flawless and the type is quite attractive as well. If this isn't one of the finest George Macy LECs I do not know what is.

>93 dlphcoracl: A very nice work. I opted for an original unbound copy and can't decide whether to bind it or not.

>93 dlphcoracl: sounds wonderful; perhaps you'll consider sharing a photograph of that alternative binding some time? The woodcuts in that edition are indeed sublime, judging by the photos I've seen online.

On a more pedestrian note, I received my third LEC book--The French Revolution by Carlyle. I was excited to see "the ML" (not advertised as part of the sale) tucked inside the front cover. But on closer inspection it was the ML from a different book altogether... Ah well, I'm looking forward to reading the book all the same. Coincidentally, the French Revolution was illustrated by Bernard Lamotte, who I believe also illustrated LEC's second version of Notre Dame.

I have also just ordered copies of The Mysterious Island by Verne and The Journal of a Trip to the Hebrides &c by Boswell to be shipped over to the UK from the US. Slowly but surely, I'm increasing the country's Macy population.

>95 ubiquitousuk: I think you'll like the Boswell. It is a very attractive book. And, hey! It's Boswell. I must admit I am rather fond of my copy.

Picked up another biggie on my wish list: Heights of Macchu Picchu. I found a fine copy including the Monthly Letter but with some very mild sunning to the clamshell box. The folks at Motte & Bailey Booksellers in Ann Arbor Michigan were very nice and mentioned that they had another 30 - 40 LECs that they hadn't loaded onto their site yet. They emailed me a copy and their prices were very good including $100 for the Bibliography or Monthly Letter volumes. I already have a copy of all the books they listed so didn't make any further purchases. My book was very well wrapped and arrived quickly. Highly recommended - usual disclaimers.

>23 Django6924: I have Prescott's History of the Conquest of Peru: unnumbered copy (marked S.E.M. on the colophon page) given to Samuel Eliot Morison, the Introducer, and inscribed to his wife "Dione'.
Of course, I think of Morison as distinguished rather than famous.

>36 davelin: From the Shiff era? I have that. Great book.

>43 Django6924: Have you ever seen an explanation for that difference?

>60 jpinomaha: Agree with all above on Dura-lar. In addition to .003, i get some .005. I sometimes prefer this for books without slipcases, larger books or paperbacks (yes, there are some worth protecting and the thicker mylar add substance to the covers.)

>88 kdweber: I adore Aucassin and Nicolette. It introduced me to the design and illustration work of Vojtech Preissig, the Czech artist. I subsequently found a recent softbound book on Preissig published by The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.
It is one of the books I put .005 Dura-Lar (mentioned elsewhere in this thread).

>90 Django6924: >91 kdweber: You both set out why I love the Preissig work so much!

>100 laotzu225:

No I have not. Nor have I seen an explanation why the binding on Vol 3 of the Limited Editions Club is always noticeable different in color. Printed at the Curwen Press, which is usually very reliable, so it's a puzzle.

Received my copy of the LEC King John from NYCFaddict, my first of the LEC Shakespeare series. Valenti Angelo's decorations are a treat. I think he started something.....

You'll find many of Angelo's books to be a delight! I've ended up with several and his talent is truly something.

I received my shipment of The Mysterious Island by Verne and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides &c by Boswell. The latter is a very handsome volume indeed, although I'm not a huge fan of the contemporary illustrations. The former was a bit less exciting from a production point of view (especially when put against Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which is not only quarter leather but also has much nicer paper). Not that I mind: Twenty Thousand Leagues was a great read so I am looking forward to devouring it's quasi-sequel.

Additionally, I recently bought a copy of Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man by Sassoon in fine condition from a UK seller. I never read any Sassoon before, so it will be an experiment but I find the LEC edition to be, again, quite handsome with it's combination of a particularly nice red leather with gilt-blocked linen boards.

I should say that I am also very much appreciating the general sturdy quality of LEC slipcases in comparison to some of the more modern ones I have.

>107 ubiquitousuk: Congrats on your latest acquisitions. I like the LEC Verne series but it's not the best translation. I prefer the FS edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas with a revised translation by William Butcher. I don't understand why the LEC only published two of Sassoon's trilogy but I found them to be an enjoyable read. LEC slipcases are hit and miss. The later Shiff era books have really nice slipcases while the earliest Macy era books were often of poor quality not to mention hard to find.

I have added 3 LEC books to our small collection recently: The Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel, The Little Flowers of St Francis of Assisi and, most recently, The Poems of Longfellow. I am greatly enjoying all three.

I have a couple of questions for the experts about my copies of the last two books, if I may.

1. My copy of The Little Flower came with a plain grey thick paper dust jacket. The knowledgeable seller I bought this from thought it was original. There is no mention of such a dust jacket in the references I have - were some of the LEC volumes produced with dust jackets? (Whether this is original or supplied by an early owner of the book does not actually matter to me - the important thing is that it has done its job in preserving the attractive printed Venetian cloth binding in virtually ‘as new’ condition.)

2. My copy of the Longfellow Poems is bound in the black sheepskin leather variant of the binding. (The Quarto-Millenary only mentions a red leather binding.) Interestingly, the monthly newsletter states that the book was produced in three variant bindings: black, copper (presumably the red version) and tan. While is was looking around for a copy of this book I came across the red and black bindings, but not the tan version. I wonder whether this was ever produced? (As a wartime production I am surprised that three different colour bindings were used. The monthly newsletter says that, with paper and leather shortages, they could not produce enough copies of the book for all members, being about 15 copies short!)

>109 edgeworn: I can answer the first one. Many of the books published by the Officina Bodoni (which I believe Little Flowers was the first edition they produced) included a dustjacket. A few others had them as well, like Vanity Fair and The School for Scandal, off the top of my head.

As for the second, variants did happen occasionally. Barchester Towers is one of the more notable in the LEC canon for having two, and it sounds like Longfellow was another. This practice was more common with the Heritage Press. I haven't seen the Longfellow LEC so I can't answer your question about the tan binding, but perhaps this was done for the non-numbered copies? Just a guess.

>109 edgeworn: I think that the original dust jacket has the book limitation on the spine (bottom).

>110 WildcatJF: >111 BuzzBuzzard: Thank you both.

My copy of The Little Flowers has the limitation number printed on the slipcase, but I cannot see one on the dust jacket. However, the part of the dust jacket covering the spine is significantly sun-faded, and it is possible I suppose that the number has faded to invisibility.

>112 edgeworn: May be the number is on the slipcase on this one. The Betrothed (another Officina Bodoni book) has the number on the dust jacket.

>109 edgeworn:

Virtually all the LECs from the Macy period were sent with a dust jacket/wrapper. This was virtually always the glassine either much desired or much despised by collectors. As the glassine aged, it usually yellowed and became brittle, and is often, when still present, in tatters. A Limited Editions Club with pristine glassine usually means the book was never opened expect for a preliminary examination. If you try to read a Limited Editions Club that has the glassine present, it will usually begin falling apart. It was not intended for anything other than to prevent finger marks during the packaging (and I assume the signing).

All books from the Officina Bodoni, on the other hand, had plain paper dust wrappers, which have proven to be more durable. As BuzzBuzzard noted, many of these paper jackets had the limitation number, my copy of The Gallic Wars has the limitation number (931) underlined, as does my The Betrothed (1198). The title is also printed on the wrappers. The practice of printing the limitation numbers must have been suspended, perhaps after WW II because my copies od Quo Vadis? and The Last Days of Pompeii do not have the limitation numbers on the wrappers. (Incidentally, I acquired these last two from a relative of my wife and they were still in the unopened Limited Editions Club shipping cartons.)

Yet another variation are the books from the Oxford University Press, usually large 2 volume affairs, which had printed paper dust jackets, usually with a pattern that matched the decorative paper sides of the slipcase, and usually featured a reproduction of one of the illustrations. The are the most elaborate and attractive dust wrappers/jackets used on the Limited Editions Club books: Vanity Fair, Peregrine Pickle, Gil Blas, The Faery Queen, The Old Wives Tale, and (I believe but I do not own a copy, The Pickwick Papers}. To these must be added the Art Deco-patterned paper dust wrappers for Preissig's Aucassin and Nicolette and perhaps some others?

Addendum: And of course the Evergreen Tales!

>112 edgeworn: >113 BuzzBuzzard: I have The Betrothed, also with the number on the dust jacket. But The Sonnets of Petrarch also from Mardersteig does not have the number on the jacket. I am sure it is the original; the title on the jacket exactly matches the title on the slipcase back.

>114 Django6924: Thank you for your full and most informative answer. Your reply prompted me to re-examine my bookshelves and I discovered that I have the Officina Bodoni LEC of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which not only has the paper dust jacket, but the dust jacket also has the book title and the limitation number.

Does anyone have the LEC Little Flowers in its dust jacket, to confirm whether or not this has the details printed thereon?

I have a small pile of the glassine covers which I dislike handling while I read a book and so have removed and set aside. Hopefully I can in the future match the covers to their titles!

I have been binning the glassine covers that I have received, is that sacrilege? They are indeed yellow and brittle and I much prefer to make my own dust jackets from modern clear archival film.

I have mint copies of Erewhon and The Last of the Mohicans that came with the original glassine and I have kept it under the Duralar cover. But generally I discard glassines as well.

Picked up a few low priority LECs:

Selected Writings of Thomas Aquinas to replace my EP edition
The Mill on the Floss ($25 at Oak Knoll) to replace my EP edition
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
Billy Budd and Benito Cereno ($35 at Oak Knoll) in Fine condition with Monthly Letter & Announcement - ridiculous value
The Seven Voyages of Sindbad with a blue leather spine and Monthly Letter to replace my $13 copy with a disintegrated spine

>119 kdweber:
Nice acquisitions! Congratulations!

Memoirs of Saint-Simon. Riveting, though not the fanciest of LECs. I do think the hand coloring is very charming.

>119 kdweber:

Interesting. Is that copy of Sinbad rebound? I've yet to see a copy with a decent spine.

>122 MobyRichard: Nope, original binding, the very bottom and top of the spine were faded but most of the spine has great color and the leather is in great shape. It still had the original glassine, though that was in bad shape and I tossed it. It is the nicest copy I've run across though still not perfect.

>123 kdweber:

Is it like The Descent of Man with variant leather colors? I've never seen Sinbad with anything but a green spine.

>124 MobyRichard: It's a blue-green spine but I think it's more blue than green but others may disagree. It's the same color as on my poor copy. Looking at it again, in low natural light it looks green but under my warm LED desk lamp it looks blue.

I have not posted about new acquisitions lately because the last four months have been a little hazy. Nevertheless there have been some exciting additions all complete with MLs:

1. The Master of Ballantrae (LEC) - I can't believe how much I like this one - binding, design, etc. Story is great and I finished it in a few days. Perhaps better than The Kidnapped. Strangely it reminded me of Thomas Hardy a bit. Probably because of the psychological element.
2. The Warden (LEC)
3. Barchester Towers (LEC)
4. Dracula (LEC)
5. The Secret Sharer (LEC) - an absolute steal around $60
6. The Journal of Lewis and Clarke - pretty impressive.
7. Prospectus for the Second Series (LEC) - printed on luxurious Normandy Vellum paper that sadly does not appear to have been used for any LEC.
8. Dangerous Acquaintances (HP) - one of the more uncommon books from the French romances series. It is in good shape with solid spine.

I acquired Peter and Edna Beilenson's 39 volume Shakespeare set several years ago. Beilenson (of Peter Pauper Press) designed and printed quite a number of LEC volumes in the 30's and 40's. They are in mostly VG to NF condition and each have an individual slipcase, except for the 2 vol. Poems, which is housed in a single slipcase. Macy inscribed the accompanying "Ten Years and William Shakespeare" book to Peter Beilenson. Beilenson was neither rich nor famous, but a important contributor to 20th century book arts and the LEC.

>126 BuzzBuzzard:

Exciting indeed! The RLS Master of Ballantrae is in my opinion better than Kidnapped (and Stevenson claimed it was his favorite). The Limited Editions Club edition is a gem. As I mentioned elsewhere, I have kept my HP Lewis & Clark, but I was mightily tempted by the LEV version when my wife's relative put it up for sale. Had to replace my car then, so I passed....

>127 Sport1963: The Limited Editions Club Shakespeare is still, in my opinion, the finest achievement of the Limited Editions Club --I wouldn't trade my set for a pristine Ulysses with Joyce's and Matisse's signature. Beilenson was a very important contributor to some of the Club's most important projects, including Pepys' Diary.

Fantastic looking library. Your books look like they're in great condition - the volumes and the room complement and enhance each other's beauty.

Not many LECs in the past few months, but the two I got I'm very happy with, particularly because I was looking for a nice copy of one of them for over two years! Aucassin and Nicolete had been in the top 10 of my LEC wish list for that long, but finally I did find a nice clean copy for a good price - $45. Only the dust jacket's spine is darkened by sun, but I don't care about dust jackets and toss most of them straight to the recycling bin (this one I didn't dare to, though). What a wonderful book. Joining everyone who praised it in this thread. One of my favorite LECs now.

The second one is Prescott's The Conquest of Peru. Has a couple of scuffs on the spine which were slyly hidden in the seller's pictures (and book described as Fine), but as the rest of the book is pristine, features ML, and cost me the total of only $26, I decided to keep it. Also surprised at the great condition of the marbled leather boards. I think I've read somewhere on LT that this particular leather binding tends to be fragile, but if you ignore my scuffed spine and just look at the boards, they look brand new as if the book was just released, and they appear quite sturdy too.

>130 elladan0891: Great prices, you found good bargains on some nice books. Do you have the matching The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico also bound in marbled sheepskin? The LEC's sheepskin bindings have a notorious record of deteriorating but I've found if you look long enough you can usually find examples in nice condition. I replaced the red paper covered slipcases with matching red bookcloth slipcases lined with French velour to protect the leather.

>131 kdweber: Do you have the matching The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico also bound in marbled sheepskin?

Not yet, but it's on my wishlist!

I replaced the red paper covered slipcases with matching red bookcloth slipcases lined with French velour to protect the leather.

Sounds great! Most LEC slipcases are nothing to write home about even if they manage to survive in good condition. When I free up a little, I should look into making slipcases. One slipcase I do need to make is for the early Tartuffe. The bottom of the slipcase is missing completely, and the rest is not in a great shape either. It did fulfill its role, though, as the book itself is pristine.

>132 elladan0891: As you say, it's best to find LECs with a slipcase because even if it's in bad shape it probably helped protect the book. My copy of Peru had a pristine original slipcase while Mexico was a little beat up but I still feel it was a wise move to replace both. I have to admit sometimes I get lazy and just repair the slipcase. I did this with Faust because I liked the slipcase and I just needed to replace the missing bottom. I encourage you to try making a slipcase. It's not that hard.

I found a local seller on ABE who had three really nice LEC copies of Emerson's Poems, The Aeneid and the Kredel illustrated Henry V, and reached out to them as we live in the same city to work around fees and shipping. Turns out that the sellers were super generous and gave me a 41% discount on the books versus the 20% on ABE, totaling $200 for all three! A really good deal I feel, especially for the Emerson, which looks exquisite. I'll be picking these up next month, but I'm super excited to add these to my collection!

>134 WildcatJF:

That is a bargain! I really love the watercolors in the Emerson book, and of course Ms. Petrina's illustrations for the Vergil.

The Henry V volume is really a curio. Macy thought Olivier's film version was the best movie ever made and decided to reissue the play using frames from the movie as illustrations. This was a disaster, of course, because they didn't have the technology to reproduce the images as paper prints, and the slow shutter speeds of 24 frame per second motion picture cameras causes motion blur on individual frames--which makes for smooth motion when projected but doesn't work when printed as a still image. Macy finally gave up and got Kredel to repaint the images. The result, to my eyes anyway, is less than stellar.

Illustrating a book with stills from a movie is a bad idea IMO, but if you are going to do it, then the model to follow is the way Arion Press illustrated Lampedusa's The Leopard with the photos taken by the stills photographer during the production. Virtually every motion picture has a stills photographer (in fact the Hollywood camera union used to require it) to document the making of the picture and for publicity purposes, and these stills are of very high quality. So the pictures used to illustrate The Leopard are not the exact same compositions and format as the motion picture images but reproduce very well as prints. Again, I think it's a bad way to illustrate a book.

135) Yes, the Aeneid is a favorite as the Heritage got me into this world of books to begin with, haha. And I am excited to see more of the Emerson watercolors; the sample I saw was exquisite!

Henry V via Kredel truly is a curio, isn't it? It's one I'm pretty excited to write about it given how much of a Macy fan project it was, haha. It wasn't high on my list but for 41% off it ended up being around $25-30, so I figured why not haha.

Looking over my finances, I felt I could make one last purchase of books: the LECs of Spoon River Anthology, South Wind and Tartarin of Tarascon. All were around $40-45, and the latter two were in very good condition from what I can see. Spoon River is a bit of a risk at that price, but I am hopeful it'll be in good enough shape once it arrives.

>134 WildcatJF: What a good deal and three LECs that I don't own. I've got the EP edition of the Aeneid which I'll replace some day and I've got the HP edition of the Kredel illustrated Henry V which a seller threw in unannounced to one of my LEC orders. I'm not a big fan of this Henry V and probably won't make any effort to replace my HP edition. I don't know anything about the Emerson but it sounds like it might be worth looking into. Again, congrats!

A few new additions. Some very exciting for me:

1. LEC An American Tragedy. $25 with shipping. Book is like new, unread, with grassine. ML is missing but this price is astounding.
2. LEC Quo Vadis?. $38 with shipping. Book has the plain wrapper and I think is uread too. Not crazy about the illustrations but I was very impressed by the story and would surely revisit it in this beautiful edition. Again a surprising low price.
3. LEC Call of the Wild. $95 with shipping. No moth holes on the book and it came with glassine. I am still on the fence about this binding.
4. Helmut Ackermann Steppenwolf portfolio of prints ($175). Approached this one a little backwards since I am still waiting on the LEC book.
5. LEC Steppenwolf. $27 still waiting on this one.
6. Pennyroyal The Red Badge of Courage. $40 and the illustrations are appealing to me. This will be my first Barry Moser.

7. Last but not least is the Heritage Press Life of Rembrandt. $32 with shipping. I am not sure if this is a variant binding or a special edition but it is bound in smooth, black and what appears to be a high quality morocco. It is definitely an original binding and I have seen other copies like this but not in such a good condition with only very slight rubbing to the head and tail of the spine. The book came with four page promotional material called "List of Publications" that has the very same book listed but with the lithographed, linen binding. My book has a colophon at the end starting with "For this special edition of "R. V. R.". etc" and then a description of who selected (J. B. Neumann) and printed the illustrations (Ralph Duenewald).

>139 BuzzBuzzard:

Fabulous prices for books in those conditions!

The Dreiser has generally been undervalued, principally, I believe, because it lacks the artist's signature. Marsh's star, which one time was higher than Tom Benton's, seem to decline after his death but is on the rise again, judging from the auction prices I've been seeing. His illustrations for the LEC Sister Carrie are wonderful, and his work in An American Tragedy calls to mind his famous illustrations for Dos Passos' U.S.A trilogy.

I believe if you check Michael Bussacco's Heritage Press checklist you'll see most of the "Artist's Lives" books (my name for the series), were offered in leather bindings as well as the printed cloth. I once bought the HP Lust for Life which came in a very appropriate yellow leather binding. Unfortunately, it also came with an odor of a musty basement and I returned it.

117> You are doing the right thing.

>119 kdweber: The main problem I've found with EP counterparts is that the art work seems to often be badly reproduced. I remember replacing my EP Candide with the HP/Nonesuch version precisely due to that.
What do you do with your replaced EPs?

>142 laotzu225: I give my old EPs away. First dibs go to my adult children, then friends, and finally to my local library which sells them to raise needed funds. It's interesting that you bring up the EP Candide as I'm trying to decide whether to replace it with the LEC or HP/Nonesuch.

Got the LECs of Spoon River Anthology, South Wind and Tartarin of Tarascon in the mail today.

Spoon River is in very good shape, but is a bit musky. I love the work and having Masters' signature is super cool, but Boardman Robinson's artistry does nothing for me. The case was splitting at the top but otherwise I'm happy.

South Wind is in very good plus condition all the way around. Carlotta Petrina's artwork is gorgeous, but I do see Macy's criticism with how it was printed in blue as fairly valid. It's a uniquely designed book all the way around, honestly. There's no proper title page!

Tartarin was like new. Definitely the nicest of the 1st series books I have. Even had the instruction card! The slipcase is a little faded but the books are beautiful!

Overall I feel I got these books at a really good price!

2020 has been a big year for my toddler-aged collection (largely focusing on early series and Schiff era). Perhaps working from home lands itself well to eBay / Abe searches.

Here are some that I am very excited about:

Alighieri, Dante. THE DIVINE COMEDY. 1932. Signed by Hans Mardersteig.
Austen, Jane. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. 1940. Signed by Helen Sewell.
Baudelaire, Charles. LES FLEURS DU MAL (FLOWERS OF EVIL). 1940. Illustrated with 27 collotype reproductions of pen and wash drawings by Rodin (1840-1917). Issued unsigned.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. THE DECAMERON. 1930. 2 volumes. Signed by T M Cleland.
Borges, Jorge Luis. FICCIONES. 1984. Signed by Sol LeWitt. (LEC Vol #541 : 8th Book / 47th Series)
Burton, Richard (translator and notes) THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT. 1934. 6 volumes. Signed by Valenti Angelo.
Carpentier, Alejo. THE KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD. 1988. Signed by Roberto Juarez and John Hersey.
Dickens, Charles. A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 1934. Signed by Gordon Ross.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. A RAW YOUTH. 1974. 2 volumes. Signed by Fritz Eichenberg.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. 1933. 3 volumes. Signed by Alexander King.
Dumas, Alexandre. THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 1932. 2 volumes. Signed by Pierre Falke.
Faulkner, William. HUNTING STORIES. 1988. Signed by Neil Welliver. (LEC Vol #551 : 8th Book / 48th Series)
Grahame, Kenneth. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. 1940. Introduction by A. A. Milne. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Issued without the artist's signature due to his death before publication. Signed by Bruce Rogers, the book designer & typographer. Limited to 2020 copies. Issued at $15 Sept. 1940.
Grass, Gunter. THE FLOUNDER. 1985. 3 volumes. Signed by the author, who also illustrated the books.
Lewis, Sinclair. MAIN STREET. 1937. Signed by Grant Wood.
Malory, Sir Thomas. LE MORTE D’ARTHUR. 1936. 3 volumes. Signed by Robert Gibbings.
Plutarch. THE LIVES OF THE NOBLE GRECIANS AND ROMANS. 1941. 8 volumes. Signed by W. A. Dwiggins.
Polo, Marco. THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO. 1934. 2 volumes. Signed by Nikolai Fyodorovitch Lapshin.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. 1938. Signed by Miguel Covarrubias.
Swift, Jonathan. 1950. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT BY DR. LEMUEL GULLIVER. and A VOYAGE TO BROBDINGNAG MADE BY LEMUEL GULLIVER
Swift, Jonathan. THE TRAVELS OF LEMUEL GULLIVER. 1929. Signed by Alexander King.
Twain, Mark. ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. 1942. Signed by Thomas Hart Benton.

>144 WildcatJF:

Nice acquisitions Jerry. I do like Boardman Robinson's work here, though I know for many he is an acquired taste. And I also really like the blue ink illustrations in South Wind--I also have the first HP edition where they are reproduced in black and for me, they don't have the magic. What I DO not care for in the LEC South Wind is the ornaments used for page breaks. I find them fussy and more defeating the eye than the blue ink for the illustrations.

>145 lecinprogress:

Nice diversity! What is the condition of The Thousand Nights and a Night? I've seldom seen this set in Fine condition.

Good, I believe (and for $100, I was fairly content). LT doesn't rotate images, but you can still get a sense for the condition.

>145 lecinprogress: Nice job! Lots of higher end LECs, when I first started collecting LECs I only bought the cheaper editions. I still don't have the LEC Pride and Prejudice or The Wind in the Willows.

>145 lecinprogress: Nice haul! Definitely acquired some gems!

>146 Django6924: I do like a few of Robinson's illustrations; the ones that really go in on the morbidness, haha. And I adore Petrina's artwork, but the blue ink makes it a little hard to make out all of the detail within them. And I can see the argument about the page breaks; they are a little excessive, haha.

I picked up a near fine copy of Lust for Life in a serviceable but stained and heavily sunned slipcase but since it has such a nice leather binding I thought it deserved a new velour lined slipcase. It is an interesting read so far but the quality of the reproductions leave much to be desired with most of the art poorly reproduced in black and white.

>150 kdweber:

Ken, I picked up a portfolio of Van Gogh reproductions Heritage issued to go with the book, and indeed, the reproductions in no way do justice to Van Gogh's art.

But, when it comes right down to it, even the best reproductions today don't do justice to this tragic artist's work. I spent a whole afternoon at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam some year ago, and the experience was overwhelming. I have been to many art museums, including the Louvre, but never was I struck by how different the experience of seeing Van Gogh's work in person was from seeing it reproduced.

>150 kdweber: >151 Django6924:
Gotta agree that Van Gogh's paintings have to be seen in real life. I was fortunate to catch a rotating exhibit at the De Young in San Francisco that had Starry Night as part of its collection, and it truly blew me away how much paint was on the canvas. It has a texture no reproduction can ever capture.

>152 WildcatJF: We keep a poster of Starry Night in our guest bedroom (our daughter's old room) because when our daughter was three we were visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York and when our little girl saw that painting she stopped complaining and just starred and starred at it. She still loves the painting to this day. I believe the painting exhibited you saw at the De Young back in 2010 was Starry Night Over the Rhone. One of two great Impressionist exhibits on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

>151 Django6924: You're right, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is incredible.

So many magnificent paintings in such a short career.

I picked up what might be the last acquisitions of the year for me; Emerson's Poems, The Aeneid and the Kredel illustrated Henry V, as mentioned earlier. All three are in very good plus to near fine condition in terms of the books themselves (The Aeneid has some of the gold on the spine text missing in a few letters, but outside of that and some bookplates they're in amazing shape) with good plus to very good slipcases. They all came from a local family who owned a large ranch out here and whose collection was donated to the local community college, but the college couldn't keep all of the volumes so they sold off what they couldn't take, which is how these three ended up with the seller I bought them from. All same limitation number, as well.

I'm really taken with the Emerson; the paintings are reproduced exquisitely and really pop from the page. The Aeneid is nice as well. I've seen it before (I documented my university's copy several years ago), but having it to sit alongside my Heritage (the book that got me into this, haha) is really cool. Henry V is a loving tribute to the Olivier film, although I will say that while the love is apparent Kredel was perhaps not the best illustrator for the task and his artwork doesn't really resonate years after the film's release. He is a talented artist without question, but I think a few others in the Macy canon would have done a more evocative job...I guess Lynd Ward or Pierre Brissaud weren't interested and/or available? Personally Sylvain Sauvage is who leaps to mind as someone who would have been well suited, but he was already so busy with other books before his death around the time this book was in production that I don't think he could.

Picked up Paradise Lost and Paradise Regain'd printed by John Henry Nash. The only Nash printed LEC I was missing. I'm not really a fan of Paradise Lost though I have the two nice Folio Society editions (the first to read, the second for the commentary volume). Though better than Pilgrim's Progress (which didn't stop me from picking up the FS LE), I prefer The Vision of Piers the Plowman if one must tackle a Christian morality tale. I doubt I'll reread this edition but I wanted it as an example of Nash's design and for the exemplary work of Carlotta Petrina.

There weren't a lot of copies on Abe and their condition wasn't what I had in mind so when a nice looking copy came up for auction at the recent pba LEC auction I put in a max bid of $100 (which would end up costing me ~$150 delivered). Luckily I was outbid (gavel at over $200 or ~$300 delivered) since another LT contributor commented that the entire collection was tainted by a bad odor. Surprisingly, a nice copy came up on eBay just 10 days later which I snagged for $70 delivered. A lesson in patience.

Both copies had a damaged slipcase (missing back panel). Most copies of this edition are missing the slipcase entirely. When I received the book I was about to slap a new back panel covered in black bookcloth (a $1, 15 minute repair) when I decided to build a new slipcase entirely. I didn't like the flaking black paper and I thought this book should be in a velour lined slipcase. I decided to cover the slipcase in red bookcloth rather than black to match the boards.

Now I was careless, I whipped through the first stage of the build but when I double checked the fit I realized that I had made the case too wide. Ugh, I always check myself but totally goofed up this time. I had to cut the three sides off and trim them down to the correct size. Luckily it all worked out in the end but took way more time than it should have.



The spine is actually much lighter than it appears in the picture.

>155 kdweber:

Ken, my wife and I just finished reading PL for a bookclub--her first time and my third. I used my old Odyssey Press edition (with all my old marginalia) that I used when I took a Milton course as a grad student, and she used the Folio Society edition with Blake's fabulous illustrations.

This most recent reread confirmed my earlier judgement of the poem; I agree with A.E. Housman that "malt does more than Milton can/To justify God's ways to man." While you can't help but respect the enormous erudition of the poet and his ability to create some magnificent word pictures of Heaven, the Garden, and Hell, and his frequent felicities of phrase, I don't buy any of it. Milton's God is no God I would ever respect, Satan, despite the later adoration of him by Shelley and other Romantics is a whiner and a spoiler you can't help thinking he deserved worse than he got, and the portrayal of Eve makes any self-respecting feminist (and even open-minded males) foam at the mouth. Adam is the one truly noble character in the poem, and yet even he at the end comes off a little like Lennie in Of Mice and Men when Michael is showing the horrible things in store for the human race, but it's all OK because it will all lead up to the Messiah.

There is an amusing episode in Voltaire's Candide when the learned Pococurante trashes Milton and PL (he also gives Homer and Vergil a hard time). Of course Voltaire is satirizing a kind of literary dilettante, and apparently, like Candide, rather liked Milton himself, but there is more than a little truth in the criticism of the poem.

>156 Django6924: Robert, there is no way I could get my book club to read any of the major Christian morality plays. They're mad enough at me already for getting them to read Ulysses (it took us 3 months) as well as War and Peace. I love your Housman quote. Your review of Paradise Lost reminds me of this great review of Pilgrims Promise (note the last paragraph):

Pilgrim's Progress is about two delusional assholes wandering around being dicks to people, so it's basically a takeoff of Don Quixote. But the dreaming narrator seems unconscious of the fact that the pilgrims are both jerks. I suppose it's possible that they're not supposed to be jerks at all, but...no, that can't be right. They're such jerks.

It starts with a guy named Christian abandoning his family to wander off in search of a magical city. "His wife and children...began to cry after him to return, but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying Life! Life! Eternal life!" It's pretty funny, in a mean kind of way.

So he takes off and immediately falls into the Slough of Despond (translation: "Marsh of Bummers"), and we immediately see that he's not only a dick (see above) but not very bright. He flails away through the mud, and as he's finally struggling out of it, some other guy comes by like what's up, and Christian is all "as I was going thither I fell in here," and the dude is like, "But why did you not look for the steps?" Christian's all, "There were steps?" Womp womp.

And then he runs across some virgins. "Come, good Christian, since we have been so loving to you, to receive you in our house this night..." Woohoo, virgins! I guess it was pretty smart after all for him to run out on his family.

He picks up his very own Sancho Panza along the way, a dude named Faithful - people have funny names in this book - and they recognize kindred dick spirits in each other; they will have great fun being mean to everyone else they meet for the rest of the book. Right away, for example, they run into a dude named Talkative, and they're just pricks to him for basically no reason. I guess Talkative's name is ironic or something because he actually does very little of the talking, and whenever he does open his mouth they just bag on him mercilessly:
Faithful:Some cry out against sin even as the mother cries out against her child in her lap, when she calleth it slut and naughty girl, and then falls to hugging and kissing it....The proverb is true of you which is said of a whore, to wit, that she is a shame to all women; so are you a shame to all professors.
Talkative: Since you are ready...to judge as rashly as you do, I cannot help but conclude that you are some peevish or melancholy man, not fit to be discourse with.
Talkative has done nothing to infer that he's a sinner. Christian has heard rumors about him, that's all, and Faithful is like okay, good enough! And then they ditch him.

Anyway, so then they pass through Vanity Fair, which has all kinds of stuff for sale, but they're like "We buy the truth!" which doesn't really make any sense but fine, save your money. Unfortunately the merchants are pissed off about that, so they torture and burn Faithful to death, which you're like holy shit, where did that come from? It's pretty gross. Luckily he's replaced by a guy named Hopeful who's exactly the same as Faithful in every way, so...whatever? If Christian's going to never mention Faithful again after watching him get tortured to death, I guess I won't either.

So they ditch another guy or two, and sing some shitty songs - their idea of a fun chat is to sing shitty songs - and then Christian is all "Oooh, shortcut!" and of course they're captured by a giant and chained up in his dungeon for like a week, and he's about to kill them when - get this - suddenly Christian is like oh shit, I totally forgot, I have a magic key with me that will open anything. This is another ongoing theme: Christian just forgetting shit. It'll come up again later. So they unlock their chains and amble off, and Christian's like I know the way back, and Hopeful is like you know what, maybe I'll lead the way for a while, homie.
Christian: Who could have thought that this path should have led us out of the way?
Hopeful: I was afraid on it at the very first, and therefore gave you that gentle caution.
They should have named him "Passive Aggressive." They get lost again in no time, and once again they're eventually like oh shit, "They also gave us a note of directions about the way, for our more sure finding thereof, but therein we have also forgotten to read." It's a miracle these two bumbling nincompoops ever make it anywhere at all.

And then there's another case of them ditching a perfectly nice guy. His name is Ignorance, of all things, and he's like "I'm a holy pilgrim too!" but Christian is all,
Why, or by what, art thou persuaded that thou hast left all for God and heaven?
Ignorance: My heart tells me so.
Christian: The wise man says, "He that trusts his own heart is a fool." (Prov. 28:26)
Ignorance: This is spoken of an evil heart, but mine is a good one...I will never believe that my heart is thus bad.
Christian: Therefore thou never hadst one good thought concerning thyself in thy life.
Ignorance: That is your faith, but not mine; yet mine, I doubt not, is as good as yours, though I have not in my head so many whimsies as you.
Look, here's the thing: it's not this dude's fault his parents named him Ignorance. It was a dick move on their part, and sure, if it was me I might come up with a nickname like Igny or something, but I feel like Christian and Hopeful are judging him more by the name than by the perfectly innocuous things he says. This is an ongoing theme - people with bummer names getting shat on for it - and it just seems hella uncool.

Anyway, Christian and Hopeful respond by wandering off while chanting at him, "Well, Ignorance, wilt thou yet foolish be, To slight good counsel, ten times given thee?" Actually chanting at him. It's moments like this that led George Bernard Shaw to describe it as "a consistent attack on morality and respectability, without a word that one can remember against vice and crime."

Later on Ignorance will get to the gates of Heaven and it turns out that Christian and Hopeful are right: he totally doesn't get in. He is instead bound and thrown straight into Hell, so that sucks for him, and if you thought that this was going to be a book where Christian and Hopeful learn a valuable lesson at the end about not being dicks to absolutely everyone, this ending isn't going to satisfy you any more than Don Quixote's did.

Because it turns out that the God of John Bunyan actually is Christian's God. This is the menacing, Puritan God our American forefathers sailed to America shrieking about - the one Sinners are in the Angry Hands of - and I don't care for Him. He is too much of a dick for me.

The book itself has its moments. It's vividly written; there are exciting parts; it's not boring. But it's nowhere near as good as its exact contemporary Paradise Lost, which leads you to wonder about its enduring popularity. Is it just possible that Christians are so fond of it because it's quite a bit simpler than Milton?

Very funny! Thanks for sharing. And again, more than a little truth about the weirder aspects of how people behave in this story.

Perhaps because institutional religion makes me uncomfortable, I am not a huge fan of any of these classics (and I'm afraid I'll be branded as a Philistine because I'm throwing the Divine Comedy in this category as well). The world classic with a quasi-religious theme, Goethe's Faust, is the only one I can read with real pleasure.

(Speaking of Philistines, I have always much preferred Milton's Samson Agonistes, and wonder why the fine press publishers have given it short shrift.)

>157 kdweber:
A perfect paraphrase. Love it!

>157 kdweber:

I think it was popular because people took allegory seriously at the time. In true allegory, characters behave the way they do because they have dual natures (like the incarnated Christ in this example). The characters and places don't "symbolize" virtue or vice. They emphatically "are" whatever virtue or sin or attribute they are named. Christian isn't stupid; he's Fallen, i.e. blind and doesn't have his shit together by nature and predestiny like Mankind with the exception that he's willing to ape Jesus and leave his family behind to seek something (some) Christians would consider of greater value.

It's probably popular today among Christians b/c few serious contemporary artists make "Christian" art, and the few who do hide it pretty well or deny there's anything specifically Christian about it. You know things are bad when the very dead C.S. Lewis is your go-to artist.

Picked up a copy of Le Paysan de Paris. Paris is probably my favorite city though I only lived there for six months back before the turn of the century. It's a pretty big tome so I had to play musical books on one of my taller shelves to make room.

I didn't plan on getting any more books this year but a sudden flash sale of 30% off made me go ahead and snag two I had my eye on for a while: Oedipus the King and Green Grow the Lilacs. The former I've had in a Heritage and I always relished its design chops and history, so getting the LEC is a worthwhile upgrade. Green Grow the Lilacs will be my very first Benton (and considering his others go for significantly higher numbers I felt this was a great starting point) and I learned this is the basis for Oklahoma!, which I did not know, so I'm intrigued to give it a read!

>162 WildcatJF:
LEC's Green Grow the Lilacs is one of underrated productions of the club! I have recently purchased it, too, and I think that it is seriously undervalued for what it offers.
Congratulations on your acquisitions! You will enjoy it, I am sure.

Grapes of Wrath.

Django - if I recall correctly, at some point you mentioned that your copy came with how to care for the leather binding. Would you be able to share that? And any other tips?

It's a single page inserted. I'm not sure I would recommend following the use of a treatment as described, but the leather on my copies looks very good and hasn't been handled much at all. (This is a new hosting site which I hope to use instead of Imgur):

That seemed to work when I previewed it, but now it's not behaving. Here is a link:

https://postimg.cc/5j0b682L

>162 WildcatJF:

Nice acquisitions, Jerry. I think you will be pleased with Green Grow the Lilacs as it is Benton at his best in book illustration for the Limited Editions Club. The illustration of Curly on horseback is a classic.

I have a record of Tex Ritter singing the title song, Green Grow the Lilacs, and in the introduction he mentions he had a part in the original Theatre Guild production in which Franchot Tone played Curly. The music in the play consisted, as he says in the intro, of "traditional folk songs and cowboy ballads" such as the title tune. One of the songs is in fact an old English/Irish folk song, "Sam Hall," which, if you are a fan of Johnny Cash, you probably know from his 2002 album.

>163 booksforreading:

I'm in total agreement; this is highly undervalued. An important and enjoyable play, some of Benton's very best work--why is it usually half the price of any other Benton-illustrated LEC?

>168 Django6924:
Maybe because the reproductions of the illustrations were done not like the artist intended and, therefore, appear reversed in the book?
I doubt this is the reason, though.

>167 Django6924: Thank you! I’ll heed your advice and forego rubbing Leather Vita (sounds a bit like Tono Bungay) into the rawhide.

I got my books today, and I think I am the lucky recipient of a cataloging error from the bookseller.

I got Green Grow the Lilacs, which has a slipcase that has done the job of protecting the book quite well. It has a slight ding at the top front binding and a couple little stains on the cover but is otherwise perfect. The case has taken a fair amount of abuse and staining and sunning but the case is always more of a bonus than anything for me.

The other is Oedipus, but not the Sophocles play I was expecting based on the description; no, this is the 1989 Friedrich Durrenmatt Oedipus that Sid Shiff issued, and it's complete with newsletter, the tissue protecting the artwork, and is in exquisite shape, with only a slight indentation on some of the pages being a mildly sour mark. Normally this retails for $150+, but I got it for $52.50 + tax! No complaints!

>171 WildcatJF: Great price for the Oedipus! As you noted, I paid exactly $150 for my copy.

A few da s ago, I have received Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and it instantly became one of my favourite LECs. Just a wonderful printing job on wonderful paper with great illustrations. The quality is only surpassed by some of the later Shiff era editions I own (i.e. Portrait of Shunkin). Are there more gems on par with Confessions, especially from that era?

So far, I have realised that LEC books vary tremendously in terms of quality and collecting them very selectively is the way to go for me. Do the experts here have any suggestions? At this moment, I can tell that the editions printed by the Officina Bodoni and the Wild Carrot Letterpress promise exceptional quality. What are your favourite acquisitions?

>173 SebRinelli:
I have exactly the same feeling — I’m going for just the most pleasing combinations of text, paper, printing, illustration and binding.

My favorites, so far, are:

Conrad “The Secret Sharer”
More “Utopia”
Bacon “Essays”
Aesop “Fables”
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Shakespeare “Hamlet” (1933)
Homer “Iliad and Odyssey” (1931)
Ovid “Metamorphoses”
Dickens “A Christmas Carol”
Cervantes “Don Quixote” (1933)
Twain “Huckleberry Finn” (1933)
Macchiavelli “The Prince”
Boccaccio “Decameron” (1930)
Lucretius “Of the Nature of Things”
Epicurus “Extant Works”

>174 kermaier: As we all have slightly different tastes, I would most definitely have to add a few more to your list (list not inclusive):

Xenophon. Anabasis
DeFoe, Robinson Crusoe
The Four Gospels

and a few more.

>173 SebRinelli:

John Gay, The Beggar's Opera
Molière, Tartuffe (1930)

Both from the first decade, superlative paper and printing, and striking original lithographs.

>173 SebRinelli: To all those other great choices I'd add the following earlier LECs:

Aucassin And Nicolete, Batouala, Punch and Judy, Salome (1938, two volumes - French & English)
I also like the LECs that were designed/printed by John Henry Nash

>174 kermaier:, >175 Glacierman:, >176 Django6924:, and >177 kdweber::
Thank you all for your input. Quite a few of your suggestions made it to my wish list.

>178 SebRinelli: You are welcome. I would also add Sterne's Sentimental Journey. The whole thing comes together quite nicely, I think, although of course some are not as thrilled with it as am I. The paper is especially fine. Finding a copy w/o a sunned spine takes patience and a little extra cash, though.

And how can I forget the 2-volume 1932 Three Musketeers? Well printed, excellent paper (an all-rag paper from Pannekoek), lovely binding, great illustrations...yup. A winner.

Edited to add a title.

I received a copy of Heritage Press' The Brothers Karamazov yesterday, oddly enough some of the pages are uncut. The bottom edge is a rougher cut than the other three, but it seems strange that they should have missed a few pages altogether.

>180 myriads:

Infrequent mistakes happen in book publishing despite high quality standards. A few uncut pages in an HP is relatively minor compared to a copy of the Limited Editions Club Tono-Bungay I purchased several years ago which has an entire signature duplicated (and as a result, one is missing making a serious gap in the story). I have had this happen on other books, but never before in a Limited Editions Club book.

Found a large cache of about 75 HPs at an estate sale today in Atlanta, for $10 apiece. They all had Sandglasses and slipcases. Fortunately, they'd posted photos of most of the shelves in advance so I could try to figure out which ones I had and did not have in advance. I bought 25, which brings me to 311 HPs. My current thought is that there are about 425 HPs I'd need for a reasonably complete collection, so this was a nice addition (you have to decide whether you want an HP edition of a book where you already have the LEC, in a nearly identical format, or whether you want all of the editions of a title that has been published 2-3 times over the years). Anyway, happy that most of the ones today were from the 1960s and 1970s:

Of Mice and Men
Kenilworth
Frankenstein
Kim
White Fang
Short Stories of Oscar Wilde
Little Women
Jane Eyre
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Swiss Family Robinson
Thomas Aquinas
She Stoops to Conquer
Daisy Miller
The Martian Chronicles
Cyrano de Bergerac
Tristan and Iseult
Puddn’head Wilson
The Notorious Jumping Frog and Other Stories
The Jungle Books
Cape Cod (Thoreau)
The Canterbury Tales
Waverley
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Around the World in 80 Days
The Tales of Guy de Maupassant

>182 SteveJohnson: Great Haul. Always easier when they post good photos so we can plan ahead.

>182 SteveJohnson:

Very nice haul--and at least 2 of these, Of Mice and Men and The Martian Chronicles--are not easy to find, and the Ray Bradbury usually sells at prices one would expect to see on an average LEC--or higher.

I think the dust has settled enough now for me to have a complete account of my 2020 acquisitions:

LEC:

Kenilworth
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
The French Revolution
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
The Great Gatsby
Bel-Ami
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson Ll.D.
The Mysterious Island
The Life of Samuel Johnson
Around the World in Eighty Data
Kidnapped

HP:

Crainquebille
The Turn of the Screw
Crime and Punishment

Since I bought my first Macy book this year, that's my complete collection. Overall, I'm pleased, especially given that it is difficult and/or costly to get these books in the UK. And I'm glad to say that some of my favourite books are now part of this collection. Looking forward to what 2021 brings.

>185 ubiquitousuk: Nice haul! How did you find The Mysterious Island? Always wary of older Verne translations. Is it readable?

>186 RRCBS: It's amazingly readable and I'd never believe I was reading a19thC translation if I didn't know better. There are some departures from Verne's original, so it all depends on whether you are willing to accept this as a text in its own right, or whether you want the pure experience of Verne's intention. I am content to enjoy the translated novel for what it is.

One thing: if you haven't done so already, don't research the changes made by the translator before reading. You'll inevitably come across a major plot spoiler!

In case it's of interest, the book will be up on my blog at 16:00GMT tomorrow (Saturday) at https://ubiquitousbooks.wordpress.com/?p=1262

>187 ubiquitousuk: "the book will be up on my blog at 16:00GMT tomorrow (Saturday)"

Looking forward to it!

Acquisitions from my first year of collecting LEC books:

Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
Martian Chronicles
Nibelungenlied
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Song of Roland
Steppenwolf
Undine

>

You're starting with some of the crème de la crème!

>186 RRCBS: >187 ubiquitousuk:
I got a close to fine copy of this recently and am 90% of the way through (at page 500). Lovely with wonderful Edward Wilson illustrations. But what a page-turner it is! And what a wonderful cast of characters!
Very readable.

>191 laotzu225: Yes, I agree, I couldn't put it down! It was my second Verne novel and I had already had a similar experience with Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Now I've picked up Around the World in Eighty Days and am hoping it's no less riveting.

Hello! This is my first message here. Nice to meet you all!

Today I've received my first Heritage Press book - R.V.R.: The Life Of Rembrandt Van Rijn. I am very impressed with the quality of this book. I find it better than most of my Folio Society books.

I was surprised by the colophon(?) which also has The Nonesuch Press written on it. Can anyone explain this?

>193 Lukas1990: Welcome!

George Macy, who owned the Heritage Press, briefly owned the London-based Nonesuch Press to assist his friend and fellow publisher Francis Meynell during a rough period in WWII, if memory serves. They also collaborated on a few books together (namely the French Romances, see https://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/of-interest-the-history-of-th.... First time I've seen Nonesuch on this particular book, but I imagine it was a title Macy worked with Meynell to publish in the UK. Perhaps someone else has a little more knowledge on this...

I run a blog on these books, and did write about an edition of R.v.R. here if you're interested: https://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/heritage-press-r-v-r-by-hendr...

>194 WildcatJF: Thank you for the reply. I read a lot of posts on your blog including the one about Heritage Press Reprint R.v.R. It's a great source of information! I guess my book was made for the UK market as I got it from a UK bookseller. Though it was printed in US. There is also no date of publication.

>195 Lukas1990: Thank you! That's my goal!

Most Heritage Press titles don't list a date of publication as they were constantly reprinted. Typically, only the exclusives had a date. R.v.R was originally published in 1938-39, so I would guess yours is close to that point, maybe the early 1940s. Did it happen to come with a newsletter called a Sandglass?

>196 WildcatJF: No it doesn't have a Sandglass. It only has a slipcase.

I was expecting to see something like this:



But my copy only has "Printed in the United States of America". There is an edition of the book on Ebay which has the picture of the book cover on the slipcase and the book cover itself is black:

>197 Lukas1990: Yeah, you'll find there's a lot of variants in the Heritage Press. My copy that I had on the blog was a "Heritage Reprint" sold in bookshops with a dustjacket (a very unusual practice for the Club). It's a pretty fascinating world of book collecting!

>4 BuzzBuzzard: New member here and just seeing this. Breathtaking!